Halloween is Coming!

October 1, 2010

It’s October 1st today, and that means there are only 30 days left until Halloween arrives. I’m a big fan of the holiday, and look at it as a chance to act like a kid again. I’m convinced that dressing up helps you to stay young. As we’ve grown up and become adults, I think we oftentimes forget about how important a role fun plays in our lives.

I know that I take myself way too seriously most days, and Halloween allows me a chance to become someone (or something) other than myself. To step out of my day to day, and meet the world anew and to look at things with new eyes.

In the time I’ve lived in Chicago, I’ve not dressed up for Halloween twice. Both times, I felt bad about the whole experience – like something was missing or wrong.

With the big day fast approaching, I thought I’d share with you some Halloweens gone by. I enjoy the fantasy and make believe of dressing up, but I’ve found myself leaning more and more towards “interactive” costumes. Take a look:

A very popular post on my blog is the one where I detail out how I built my Operation costume. It’s a sort of replica on the classic battery-operated game, and instead of recreating the actual game pieces… I used candy.

The costume involves a lot of metal casings, a doorbell and a pair of salad tongs, all wired up to a hidden battery. Inside each metal casing or on top of each metal plate, I’ve got a piece of velcro. I then taped velcro onto several pieces of candy and attached them to the costume.

I’d walk up to folks and ask if they’d like some candy. Anyone who wanted some had to try to grab it with the salad tongs. If they succeeded, they got to keep the candy; if they failed and touched the metal sides… they got the buzzer.

Really, really fun. If I end up being the lucky winer of the Month at the Museum contest… this is the costume I’d rebuild and wear when I’m there.

I like doing the zombie costume a lot. It’s relatively easy, and I feel like I’ve had a lot of practice over the years.

Continuing the “interactive” costume idea, last year I dressed up as a Safari guy, who walked around with a box and a sign that said “Free Candy and Spiders.”

I filled up the box with some of my favorite candy, and also added a remote-controlled spider in the mix. I’d invite folks to take some candy, but people were forced to open the lid and stick their hand inside. My favorite part of this costume was watching people silently debate what they were going to do.

I had a lot of fun with this one, as I got to play a character in some ways. Some adults were too scared to try, and a few kids were quite fearless. Every so often, I’d trigger the spider (the remote was hidden in my pocket), and I’d catch a few people off guard.

I’ve got lots of other costumes, but not quite enough time to list them all here. I’m sure if you look around, you can find more.

If you’re dressing up this year for Halloween, great! And if you weren’t planning on it, I hope this post maybe makes you reconsider, just a little bit.